Two Horn of African countries – Somalia and Ethiopia along with East African neighbours Kenya and Uganda were the worst affected by natural disasters leading to internal displacements, a September 2018 report has noted.
According to the Geneva-based International Displacement Monitoring Center, IDMC; the Horn specifically needed disaster risk reduction measures to improve people’s resilience to natural disasters.
Over the period between January – June 2018, there was an estimated 3.3 million internal displacements across 110 countries globally.
The four African nations above mentioned suffered mostly floods while Somalia had an additional headache of drought at some point.
The ten largest displacement figures Africa occupying second to fifth slots. Floods across Kenya accounted for 326,000 displacements. Floods in nine regions of Somalia displaced 289,000 with 171,000 displaced in four regions in Ethiopia.
Somalia’s other headache – drought – displaced another 167,000 whiles 150,000 people suffered displacement across 20 districts of Uganda in the period under review.
Monsoon floods in India topped the ranking with 373,000, Philippines tropical storm, Tropical cyclone in China Viet Nam, Philippines volcanic eruption and Afghan drought displaced 149,000, 142,000, 91,000 and 81,000 respectively.
West Africa has at a point also experienced heavy flooding that has led to displacements. Ghana, Ivory Coast and more recently Nigeria have suffered flooding. In the case of Nigeria, a state of emergency was declared in four states with a cholera alert in place, hundreds are said to have died.
